Does hand winding mean hand on the wire?

[JGundry]

I only have this capability in the sense that I can hand wind in real time via a joy stick with my computerized winder and I can record that action in real time and plot it out by hand. And in theory it could be programmed in. But I think the time is prohibitive unless you are really, really bored or want to be really, really bored.

But alas what I'm really interested in is making a PAF clone using the same method that was used to make PAF which is machine winding.

[Sam Lee Guy]

Maybe one can buy spare amputated hand from hospital, attach it to machine and wind pickups. Is that hand winding? To make pickups same way as Gibson in 50's, first need to employ minimum wage workers with complete disinterest in pickups, find time machine to take workers back to Gibson factory in 50's, sneak in at night when factory empty and make pickups. If you work very hard, maybe there time to go to end of Enchantment Under Sea dance. So, Mr JGundry, stop wasting time right now with old winding machine and start work on flux capacitor.

[R.G.]

Just as a point of clarification, my personal view is that recording a hand wind and then "re-playing" it is to pickups as recorded music is to live music that has never touched an electron.

That is, the sound of recorded music can approach live music to a remarkable degree, depending on how much time and effort you're willing to spend on the playback equipment and making it as perfect as possible. Recorded music is not live; but then live music is never perfect, as there are mistakes by the musician, things they can't do outside the studio, audience coughs and snuffles, and so on. Live music varies; recorded music is almost live.

To me at least, it is clear that if you can produce a machine which puts the wires in the same positions on a bobbin with the same tension, same insulation, same everything as winding by hand, then once you put the bobbin into a pickup on a guitar there is no difference between the original truly hand-wound pickup and the machine made replica. The only differences possible are in how closely you can approach the hand wound replica. The physics of the situation are that the wire cannot "remember" whether a hand put it on the bobbin or a machine, only that it is in that position with that tension in that magnetic field and that string excitation.

Pickups can't remember who their mother was.

I think the analogy with recorded music is a good one. If I record a hand winding on a pickup, I have created a "hand wound pickup". If I re-play a hand-wound pickup, I have created a "recording of a hand wound pickup".

[David Schwab]

A machine wound coil is not hand wound, it's machine wound that simulates hand winding patterns and such. To say otherwise is deceptive. It would seem that the term "hand wound" appears to be more credible than "machine wound". Anyone who wants cost reduction in manufacturing can spin it anyway they like. If machine wound or hand wound simulations sounds great, then shouldn't they be marketed as such? Anything can be spun in a positive way, even though the opposite is obvious. Look at all the BlSt marketing around us for crap products. So, what's the bottom line on the selling point?

I agree here. The perception is that "hand wound" pickups are better because they are not done on an automated machine. So "hand wound" becomes a selling point. But of course many fine pickups are not hand wound, and don't say they are. There's no mention at all about the winding process. They talk about the tone and maybe the magnets and such. Some makers such as EMG tell you very little about the coil.

I think one thing that may be happening is that players start to learn these "catch phrases" and then demand hand wound pickups, just as many seem to think that nitocellulose lacquer sounds better than something like polyester. Of course it doesn't, just as hand winding might not automatically make a good pickup.

Like any craft, you can choose different tools and methods to achieve the end results. Then it comes down to design, hard work and talent, and maybe a little luck thrown in.

I never specifically say I hand wind pickups. I say I custom wind pickups, or I make "custom made" pickups. I make pickups... I also make guitars. I can say I do "custom made" guitars. Are the guitars "hand made"? I think saying "hand crafted" is common and accurate. But even if I had a CNC setup you still have to make guitars by hand. But I'm not doing the whole thing with hand tools. I could, but that's not practical.

So.. how about "hand crafted" pickups?

So bottom like is you make pickups. How you make pickups is secondary.

[David Schwab]

Just as a point of clarification, my personal view is that recording a hand wind and then "re-playing" it is to pickups as recorded music is to live music that has never touched an electron.

Or, how about MIDI sequenced music? I can play a MIDI controller... be it keyboards, or even a guitar, bass or drums, and record my performance. It will then play back exactly what I played, mistakes and all. But it will be doing so without making an audio recording. So it will actually be creating the sound in real time, but based on my original performance.

I think it would be fairly simple to make a winder to simulate hand winding patterns.. at least my patterns. I don't do anything special, just try and distribute the wire evenly. But I'm moving much slower than the bobbin is, so there's no way I'm getting one bobbin rotation per row of wire.

I think as long as the winder is not doing a synchronized wrap per revolution, where the wire is laid down right next to the previous turn, you are getting the same affect as scattering the wire. Plus I think you are changing the final size of the coil? Probably a bigger coil for the same number of turns than if it was wound like an inductor or some kind of solenoid coil.

[Mark Hammer]

I don't want to be too much of a stickler, but if someone makes a wedding dress with a sewing machine after pinning all the components into place, it is "hand made". If I make pasta with the machine I bought, after kneeding the pasta dough myself, it is "hand made". If I build a guitar and use a spray gun to apply a special sunburst finish and a bench-mounted buffer to bring it to a shine and visually inspect it along the way, it is "hand made".

Now, I know what you're about to say: Hand made and hand wound aren't the same thing. And you are absolutely correct. So, I'll go back to the pasta example. My blind grandmother would make her own noodles, also preparing her own dough, but she would roll the dough out with a rolling pin and use a big knife to cut the noodles by hand, where I stick a wad of dough in the machine and turn the handle, with nice flat, evenly spaced noodles coming out of the machine. The distinction you wish to make is between hand wound and hand made, much like the distinction between my hand made noodles, and my grandmother's hand-cut noodles. The uniformity of mine, and the variety of my grandmother's, yield two somewhat different eating experiences, even though they are both good noodles.

A mechanically-assisted method of producing a pickup which is monitored vigilantly, and tailored to achieve a specific tonal result for EVERY pickup can be called a "hand made" pickup without any qualms whatsoever, the same way the wedding dress made by a sewing machine is hand made and my noodles are. Here, "hand made" implies not going through a fixed process blindly, but keeping an eye on things such that specific results can be achieved.

Ironically, "hand wound" in the pure sense, and in the way some have approached it here, implies a sort of randomness that can have no specific tonal objective. I.E., you can't scatter wind in random fashion and treat it like a deliberate method that will produce a known result.

Or can you?

[JGundry]

Just as a point of clarification, my personal view is that recording a hand wind and then "re-playing" it is to pickups as recorded music is to live music that has never touched an electron.

That is, the sound of recorded music can approach live music to a remarkable degree, depending on how much time and effort you're willing to spend on the playback equipment and making it as perfect as possible. Recorded music is not live; but then live music is never perfect, as there are mistakes by the musician, things they can't do outside the studio, audience coughs and snuffles, and so on. Live music varies; recorded music is almost live.

To me at least, it is clear that if you can produce a machine which puts the wires in the same positions on a bobbin with the same tension, same insulation, same everything as winding by hand, then once you put the bobbin into a pickup on a guitar there is no difference between the original truly hand-wound pickup and the machine made replica. The only differences possible are in how closely you can approach the hand wound replica. The physics of the situation are that the wire cannot "remember" whether a hand put it on the bobbin or a machine, only that it is in that position with that tension in that magnetic field and that string excitation.

Pickups can't remember who their mother was.

I think the analogy with recorded music is a good one. If I record a hand winding on a pickup, I have created a "hand wound pickup". If I re-play a hand-wound pickup, I have created a "recording of a hand wound pickup".

If one is to accept that bobbin wound with say a felt tensioning set-up and guided by hand via a hand controlled wire guide shaft is a hand wound bobbin. Then a device that records and plays back that same movement produces the same hand wound bobbin. The live music comparison does not work. There are too many elements that could never be captured with a live recording. A live recording is a very small frame of a much larger experience. But with the above winding scenario there is any one variable, the left to right movement of the wire guide. The wire, winder RPM and tension are all constant. The left right movement of the wire guide is such a simple act that there really is no question about having enough resolution to capture and reproduce it perfectly. No other element matters so not a very large frame size is required to capture the entire winding performance perfectly.

[Steve Conner]

I think this all just reinforces R.G's original implication, which seemed to be that "Hand wound" is a marketing term with absolutely no tonal implications.

Maybe pickups should be marketed as "Progressive" vs "Scatter" wound instead of "Machine" vs. "hand". Many people seem to agree that the amount of scatter is what influences the tone, in so far as it impacts the winding fill factor and the self-capacitance. The exact type of scatter (hand, cam or CNC?) is probably not audible, provided that you use the same amount in each case, ie whatever amount makes the inductance and self-capacitance work out the same.

[Norcal_GIT_r]

My feeling is, is that if your hand does not touch the wire it's not handwound.

[R.G.]

If one is to accept that bobbin wound with say a felt tensioning set-up and guided by hand via a hand controlled wire guide shaft is a hand wound bobbin. Then a device that records and plays back that same movement produces the same hand wound bobbin. The live music comparison does not work. There are too many elements that could never be captured with a live recording. A live recording is a very small frame of a much larger experience.

What was actually in my head was the idea that what got recorded was just the result of the performance, the air pressure waves, and that was what got reproduce by another and vastly different machine (i.e. a power amplifier/speaker rather than a guitar body, which is after all, another machine.)

However, there is another exactly apt analogy. At my local Fry's electronics they have a grand piano which plays itself. Well, OK, there is a keyboard adapter on it. The original music was played into a grand which was outfitted with a keystroke recorder; a device that recorded which key went down when and for how long, and at what speed, translating to note loudness.

When played back the keyboard adapter presses the same keys at the same relative times and with the same recorded velocity. What has been recorded is the human's input, and what is reproduced is the human's input. And you know, I'm sure I could not tell a human wasn't playing if I could not see the piano. The notes are not mechanical sounding, there is the expression of timing and dynamics that the original human had.

I'm not sure whether there is ANY human who could tell the difference between a real human at the keyboard and a "finger recording". It's possible to instruct the machine to make slight but perceptible variations around the nominal human times and speeds so you could even remove the exactness of timing and dynamics as a key for recognizing the real person playing.

Egad, Turing would love this.

Fact is, if I were purely a consumer of pickups, not a tinkerer, I think I would like to have the ability to buy a replayed reproduction of some magnificent handwound pickup at a reasonable price. How many fourteen year olds would pay $20 for a pickup that is more or less provably the same as Stevie's old number one? I think a lot more money could be made that way than can be made by any number of hand-wound bobbins appreciated by cork sniffers.

Presumably the same food chain would get set up. You'd have "live artists" handwinding "performances" of a pickup, which would all be recorded as they were wound. The best pickups would be tested by the "artist" and musicians and sorted, graded, described and categorized. Then the "artist" winder could sell "copies" of his handwork, perhaps a CD containing "greatest hits" to a local winding shop who'd pay a royalty to the "artist" to "replay" a pickup for a local player. The "artist" could even hit the big time and sell his "recording" to a mass marketer and make a bunch of money on royalties.

But with the above winding scenario there is any one variable, the left to right movement of the wire guide. The wire, winder RPM and tension are all constant. The left right movement of the wire guide is such a simple act that there really is no question about having enough resolution to capture and reproduce it perfectly. No other element matters so not a very large frame size is required to capture the entire winding performance perfectly.

Notice that I didn't say that just traverse is recorded; and remember that one of the things I first started with in speculation about pickup winding was an electronically controlled tensioner. While I don't have a proven design running right now, I have no doubt that it is possible. While I have some doubts about instant-by-instant tension being a discernible differentiator between two otherwise identical coils, if it turns out to be a big deal, it can be recorded and reproduced.

[David Schwab]

My feeling is, is that if your hand does not touch the wire it's not handwound.

But what effect does your hand touching the wire impart to the sound of the pickup?

It might be none at all.

[R.G.]

But what effect does your hand touching the wire impart to the sound of the pickup?

It might be none at all.

I think I'd go further.

If we can come up with some scheme where we can tell if a hand has touched a wire at some point in the past, just by listening to the audio that goes through the wire, we will probably have enough material for a patent, if not a Nobel prize in one or all of biology, chemistry, metallurgy or physics. I think even Spock's tricorder would be proud of that trick!

[Spence]

It's far simpler than that.

Everyone knows that what we call handwound relates to the pickupmaker using his hand to tension and guide the wire.

The guys who constantly argue the toss about this are the ones who machine wind but seem desperate to find some way to market their pickups as handwound. They are not handwound no matter how you dress it up. If it's your conviction that machinewound pickups are better than handwound then just stick to your convictions and be honest about your manufacturing method.

Case closed as far as I'm concerned.

[R.G.]

It's far simpler than that.

Everyone knows that what we call handwound relates to the pickupmaker using his hand to tension and guide the wire.

The guys who constantly argue the toss about this are the ones who machine wind but seem desperate to find some way to market their pickups as handwound. They are not handwound no matter how you dress it up. If it's your conviction that machinewound pickups are better than handwound then just stick to your convictions and be honest about your manufacturing method.

Case closed as far as I'm concerned.

Don't get your knickers all in a twist yet, Spence. No one said "machine wound is better than hand wound.". Not once, go back and look. Take your time, read them all.

The issue is whether where the wires go in the coil and what tension, etc. they're put there with is what matters, not whether someone's finger touched the coil.

Yes, there is a fog of side issues being flung in about whether you can call it "handwound" or not. I was pretty clear about my position. I said:

Just as a point of clarification, my personal view is that recording a hand wind and then "re-playing" it is to pickups as recorded music is to live music that has never touched an electron.

I also pointed out that true hand winding happens when the winder holds the bobbin in one hand and the wire in the other. Anything else is some degree of mechanical assistance. It don't get much purer about what's hand wound than that, does it?

What I keep trying to get discussed is whether two otherwise identical coils, one wound by hand and the other wound by a machine sound the same. And you simply must read the qualifier: "otherwise identical" means "every wire in every turn in the same relative position on the bobbin and with the same tension".

That is, the machine version is a 'recording' of the hand wound one. Magnets, slugs, support plates, bobbin material, insulation, etc. the same, only what wound the coil changed.

Is there any audible difference in two such coils?

[Norcal_GIT_r]

But what effect does your hand touching the wire impart to the sound of the pickup?

It might be none at all.

My fingers tension and guide the wire.
Therefore my hand controls the parameters of my wind.

So I know my hand makes an huge impact on the way each pickup I make sounds.

It's far simpler than that.

Everyone knows that what we call handwound relates to the pickupmaker using his hand to tension and guide the wire.

Exactly, I totally agree.